1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates generally to controlling electricity consumption, and in particular, to managing electricity consumption for consumer devices.
2. Background Information
Many electric energy utilities (suppliers) strive for centrally managing energy demand. This is because, without acquiring specialized equipment, electricity cannot be “stored” at a typical consumer site when not needed. Further, black-outs may occur when there is insufficient electricity for consumption demand. Energy consumption shows well-known demand patterns during the day, months and seasons. Summer, for example, is particularly critical because demand for residential consumers rises mostly because of air conditioning. Despite accurate forecasting methods available (e.g., weather forecasting, trend analysis on historical data) many electricity utilities may still face a +/−5% or larger, error in energy consumption prediction.
As there is no practical way to reduce the amount of energy demand by residential and industrial consumers, the usual approach has been to apply a type of “moral suasion”, and when the energy supplied is not sufficient, the result is black-outs. Partial solutions exist for disconnecting certain energy consuming devices (e.g., Aclara Two-Way Automatic Communications System (TWACS) Technology (devices)) but a drawback is that energy consuming devices are not designed to gracefully shape their consumption according to current energy demand.